Novasep, a leading supplier of services and technologies for the life sciences industry, and the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), a UK-based technology innovation centre, have equipped the UK National Biologics Manufacturing Centre with BioSC Lab, the latest state-of-the art technology for protein purification.

According to The Future of High Value Manufacturing in the UK report, the global biopharmaceutical industry was worth more than £90 billion and would grow at 15-18% p.a. At that time, the UK biopharmaceutical sector (principally biologics) consisted of over 250 companies. The report stated that although the UK held more than 200 biopharmaceutical products in research and development, manufacturing had been predominantly undertaken overseas.

CPI’s mandate is to get UK companies up and running in technological areas that offer the largest potential impact on the future of UK and global manufacturing. It provides services to SMEs that decrease time to market for novel products or processes. Within this framework, the CPI has been keen to introduce breakthrough continuous processes in the UK biopharmaceutical sector, such as Novasep’s BioSC Lab. These enable developers to reduce equipment footprint and increase process yields, thereby saving time and money.

“The National Biologics Manufacturing Centre has been designed to help companies of all sizes to develop, prove and commercialize new and improved processes and technologies for biopharmaceutical manufacture,” said Dr Chris Dowle, director of biologics at CPI. “The installation of Novasep’s BioSC Lab will be a valuable asset to customers using the centre.”

Novasep’s BiosSC Lab, the next-generation continuous biochromatography equipment, can purify a few grams of proteins per day. This enables users to develop cost effective, high yield production processes while maintaining the same quality attributes of the protein.

“Novasep and CPI both use innovation as a strategy to solve problems in biopharmaceutical manufacturing,” said Alain Lamproye, president of the Biopharma Business Unit at Novasep. “We believe our BioSC Lab will contribute to helping the UK biopharma sector step into the future of manufacturing, where the demand is for simplification and flexibility.”

BioSC Lab is flexible and supports any process operating mode, including batch parallel batch and continuous. It is specifically designed to quickly provide the operator with the best operational parameters for purifying and converting a batch biochromatography recipe into a continuous, optimized one. Its simulation software BioSC Predict frees the process developer to set the most efficient mode and parameters to purify biomolecules such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), blood factors and other proteins.